SO LONG, SUKKAH!

BS"D


This is the small, lower sanctuary that I'm currently working in. I'm restoring Sifrei for a local Conservative shul during the day & working on my other sofrut projects in the evenings. Isn't this pretty?

No rest for the wicked!

Later today I continued my experimentation in d'yo (sofrut ink) stain removal. I already knew some, but learned an awful lot more this summer from Yehuda Miklaf, my Jerusalem bookbinder/conservator friend, & Jack Thompson, his colleague in Portland. Uber-conservation-idols they are. I'm lucky to have access to them.

I've experimented with both fabrics (my clothes & silk or cotton art cloths) & parchments/skins (q'laf, gevil & chamois scraps). I've noted that with most fabrics, they can be placed stain face-down on paper towels (recycled ones, please). Then I gently sponge the back of the stain with rubbing/denatured alcohol or rub detergent - liquid soap is easier on the fabric than hardened soap - into the stain until it disappears. I rinse it thoroughly & then launder the fabric.

Because d'yo is water soluable, if you catch it quickly enough then flush cold water through it will usually release the pigments. If not, I do the above.

Another method that works well is to soak the stained fabric in warm sudsy water with 1 - 4 tablespoons of household ammonia (the type with no added colour or fragrance) per litre of water. You might have to let it sit overnight. When it looks like the ink has disolved, rinse it thoroughly & wash in the hottest water safe for that fabric, with fabric safe/oxygenated bleach.

If you're strictly Orthodox like I am about using kosher soap in the house (because all cooking, eating, food-serving utensils & table cloths & napkins, etc, should be washed without unkosher animal fats, please), then if you need to get stains out of the fabric of a Torah mantle or belt, it's no problem. & if you can't find it kosher, you can always make it yourself. There are plenty of recipes for vegetable based soaps at Miller Soap (she's the mom of a friend of mine).

Be sure to test whether the stained cloth is colourfast before you do anything creative with it, too.
Who knew the Soferet was such a hausfrau? Yes, I wash, dry, scrub, cook...I even do windows!
:)

Now none of the above can be used successfully on parchment, as there's just too much water involved. Kosher solvents can be used (like colourless vodka with no added flavour or anything) or kerosene, but NOT BY THEMSELVES! Quite a few people who do Sefer Torah repair do this & it's really bad for the skin over the long-term. I was shocked by what they told me they did. You actually need to cook your solvent up with other ingredients for it to be appropriate for use with kosher parchment, but that's for people willing to "go all the way" with their sofrut study.

I took the sukah down today :(
The ushpizin & ushpizot hangings are soaking in the laundry machine, the Jerusalem artichoke stalks, ivy & jute decomposing on my compost & the bamboo planted in the garden as trellising.

I'm still hanging onto my lulav & etrog, tho'...




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MO'ADIM LE-SIMCHAH!

BS"D


My sukah last night:

Just thrown in a couple of blankets & some steamy cocoa & you're good to go!

The wall on the right needs to be re-hung for this to be kosher. There are a lot of opinions & rules, typical of Judaism, about what makes a kosher sukah. My favourite is this: the word "sukah" - סכה - illustrates the wall combinations considered kosher for a valid sukah.

The first letter, Samekh, represents a fully enclosed 4-walled structure (assuming there is a door!). The second, Khaf, teaches us that a 3-walled sukah is acceptable. Finally, the last letter, Hey, shows that 2 walls plus a partial third also makes for a mitzvah-filled sukah. That's why I have to re-attach that far right part of the hanging under the bamboo...

Shabbat shalom, Chag same'ach, gut-shabbes gut-yontif!




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SEASON OF OUR JOY

BS"D


My friend Kim, her daughter Shula & I went on a field trip today to Home Despot (not a typo!). I'd been checking around my local Canadian Tire (because they're more than just tires!!!) off & on the past couple of weeks as the patio & garden stuff went on sale, hoping to find a bargain on sukah (that would be "tabernacle" to you Christians) building materials. But no luck. So I caved & went to the Big Box American Chain Store Which Is Destroying The Earth.

A mitzvah, after all, is a mitzvah...

& thanks to my good friends & neighbours - & their car - I built my sukah today!

I know, it needs a little more schach for the roof, but that can be remedied before the Chag starts tomorrow night. "Chag", by the way, is often used to mean "Jewish Holiday", but actually means "pilgrimage" & comes from the same etymological root as the Arabic word "Hajj".

Its frame & part of the roof is of bamboo tied together with jute & ivy. There are Jerusalem artichoke stalks on the roof. I harvested my organic garden for the autumn & tossed the inedible greens up there. The hangings for the ushpizin & ushpizot, the prophets we invite as guests into the sukah each night for dinner, are old ones that I collaborated on with a local Bukharan Jewish judaica dealer years ago.

Cozy, isn't it?




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